She is a professor emeritus at California Polytechnic State University (Cal Poly); she was chair of statistics at Cal Poly for six years and associate dean for thirteen more.
[1][2] Peck grew up moving frequently as the daughter of a journalist, and was the first college-educated member of her family.
She did her undergraduate studies in social science at the University of California, Riverside in the 1960s, and was inspired to move into statistics by Florence Nightingale David, the instructor for one of her classes there.
[1][2] After graduating and working for two years as a legal benefits counselor, she returned to UC Riverside where she completed a Ph.D. in applied statistics.
The American Statistical Association gave her their Founder's Award, and the United States Conference On Teaching Statistics gave her their lifetime achievement award.